Final Fantasy

The St. Louis Rams had a backfield of Isaiah Pead, Zac Stacy and Daryl Richardson going into the 2013 season. Two of these backs (Pead/Richardson) were coming off their rookie years, and Stacy was newly drafted. Pead, in his rookie season, carried the football 10 times for 54 yards (5.4 YPC). Stacy, who was a 5th round pick from the University of Vanderbilt, had a stat line of 1,167 rushing yards (5.7 YPC), and 12 rushing touchdowns per season in his last two years of college. And Richardson, in 2012, rushed 98 times for 475 yards (4.8 YPC) and was able to catch 24 passes for 163 yards. Digging a little bit deeper into his first year, I found a stretch of games from week 6-12 (five games) in which he carried the football 46 times for 281 yards (6.1 YPC) and also caught 11 passes for 81 yards. As fantasy owners, it was up to us to pick the player that we thought could bring the most fantasy production. Just for your amusement at my suffering, I actually chose Richardson. Hmmmm…. There seems to be a growing trend in these intros of mine.

The St. Louis Rams had a backfield of Isaiah Pead, Zac Stacy and Daryl Richardson in 2013. Two of these backs (Pead/Richardson) were rookies in 2012, and Stacy was a rookie this past season. Pead, in his rookie season, carried the football 10 times for 54 yards (5.4 YPC). Stacy was a 5th round pick from the University of Vanderbilt, and in his last two years of college, he had a stat line of 1,167 rushing yards (5.7 YPC) and 12 rushing touchdowns per season. And then there’s Richardson. In 2012, he rushed with the football 98 times for 475 yards (4.8 YPC) and was able to catch 24 passes for 163 yards. Digging a little bit deeper into that first year, I found a stretch of games from week 6-12 (five games) in which he carried the football 46 times for 281 yards (6.1 YPC) and also caught 11 passes for 81 yards. As fantasy owners, it was up to us to pick the player that we thought could bring the most fantasy production. Just for full disclosure, I picked Richardson. Hmmmm… there seems to be a growing trend in these intros of mine.

If you go and start with the 2007 season, Greg Jennings has been a consistent touchdown scorer. It was his second year in the NFL, his quarterback was Brett Favre and he played in 13 games, caught 53 passes and 12 of them were for touchdowns. That is a touchdown on every 4.4 catches. Those 12 touchdowns had him in a tie for fourth place among all wide receivers. I want to note that the players ahead of him all had at least 70 catches. The quarterback might have changed (Aaron Rodgers), but over the next four seasons (’08-’11), he caught a total of 34 touchdown passes (8.5 per season). In three of these years, he had at least nine touchdowns. I bring all this up because he was no longer in a Green Bay Packer uniform. His new team was the Minnesota Vikings, and his quarterback was Christian Ponder. (CRAZY! I know…) Yes, he was going to see more targets but the downgrade in quarterback play was going to lead to less quality targets.

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s minus-98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Matt Ryan.

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Jordan Cameron.

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Marvin Jones.

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Rashad Jennings.

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Eli Manning.

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Jordan Reed.